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Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston
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Hi all!
Finally, I am one of the lucky ones who has power, so I'm back online! Centerpoint energy is predicting next Tuesday for most customers to have power again but our lights came on Wednesday night at 6 pm. This city post hurricane is so different that I just had to make some comments.

"Do you have power" has replaced "how are you" as a standard greeting.
The city air is filled with the hum of generators and the buzz of chainsaws.
Grocery stores have had lines all the way around the building, accepting only a few people at a time, with few supplies inside
Ice is a precious commodity
There is a nightly curfew
People have been arrested over starting fights at gas stations, although most stations are up and running now
Many restaurants and businesses are still not open, mostly not because of storm damage, but because they lack power
Favorite running paths are lined with branches and debris
Many traffic lights are either blinking or just not working at all, turning major intersections into 4-way stop nightmares

I don't know what I expected, but this is not it. I'm not complaining - I was very lucky, with no damage to my home, all family and friends safe, and the power (and cable!) coming back on in only 5 days. We never had to resort to eating canned tuna or peanut butter. =) My workplace never lost power, so all the animals were safe and cool, and I could go to work for some diversion from the chaos. However, if a Category 4 or 5 storm is ever headed this way, I'm out of here. We were up all night feeling our house shake and listening to the screaming of the wind and rain, and this was barely a Cat 3.

Jana, if you read this, I hope you and your family have power and are doing well!
Last edited by: txvet: Sep 19, 08 11:57
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [txvet] [ In reply to ]
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Glad to hear that you and your family are doing well.
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [txvet] [ In reply to ]
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Glad to hear you are OK! I can't imagine what it was like to sit it out.

I'm curious if you keep water & other supplies on hand for big storms and if it's something that most people do?
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [txvet] [ In reply to ]
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Here is my "report" I added in the Lavender Room, but I think it was old news by then...

Just got back to ST after all this mess.

I live right in the middle of Houston and didn't lose power until 2:30am Saturday morning. I got it back late Monday night. I am in a 2nd story apartment (3 story building) that was very well protected.

My parents live in Beaumont and they flew in from Canada Thursday afternoon and just stayed with me instead of trying to get home. Beaumont was under a mandatory evacuation anyway.

I'm 100% ok - things got a bit hot and I got a bit hungry during the 3-4 days without power, but I'm doing 100 times better than a lot of people.

We went to Beaumont Monday to get more of my parents stuff, assuming they'd move in with me for a few weeks because we were told it would be 4-6 weeks for power to get back there as the Sabine power station had flooded. I-10 near Anahuac was quiet a site - several huge hogs/boars dead on the side of the road. On the access road we saw a sign that said "house in road." And sure enough, there is this nice little house just sitting there, windows boarded up and looking seemingly unscathed.

Beaumont looked 10 times better than after Rita. I got in 7 days after Rita and it looked like the storm had hit the day before - partially beacuse people were not allowe back in during that time. This time around, many, many people stayed and started cleaning up as soon as the storm was over. Where over 75% of the homes had substantial damage in Rita, I would say about 25% of them had damage this time. When we pulled up to the house, my neighbor was pulling out of our driveway on a tractor and his niece's husband was on our roof with a chainsaw. Our other neighbor was mowing our other neighbor's yard. There is definitely something to be said about living in the same neighborhood for 30 years. Beaumont is way smaller than Houston (150,000 people), and more able to handle this kind of situation, they are also old pros now after Rita.

We came back to Houston Monday night only to find out power had been restored in the Beaumont house. My parents had decided to go back Tuesday morning and sure enough my power came on during the night Monday.

Houston is in shambles for some, but for the most part will be ok if people can just get their hands on some ice and gas.

Galveston doesn't even look that awful, at least compared to Bolivar. Most structures made it through. They have a huge mess on the first floor to clean up, but they have 4 walls and some have roofs - something to work with and to rebuild. The west end looks great considering as well. Some did not fair well, but I would say maybe 1 in 10 houses was destroyed (unfortunately Frank's dad's happened to be one of those). Bolivar, on the other hand, probably has 1 livable house out of every 100 that was there. Half my friends/family in Beaumont all had houses on Bolivar, and the devastation is just awful. At least for the most part, those were people's 2nd homes, but I cannot even imagine the heartache for people who lived there full time. Here is a link to a posting on my blog showing the before and after of my Aunt and Uncle's front row house: http://kcwoodhead.blogspot.com/...9/crystal-beach.html.

I also feel the need to defend some of the people who ended up staying in both Galveston and Bolivar through the storm. Local officials really dropped the ball on this one, or maybe they didn't drop the ball, but Ike surprised everyone. Yes some people were going to stay come hell or high water...a very appropriate term at this time...but others had planned to leave and found themselves trapped long before the storm was set to hit.

It wasn't forecasted to make landfall until the early AM hours of Saturday. It isn't that illogical to think that you could spend the day Thursday (first day that they called for a mandatory evacuation in some of these places...people were told to "shelter in place" before that) securing your property and wake up Friday morning and still have plenty of time to get out and be safe. They did have mandatory evacuations working further south earlier in the week, but the storm just crept up on them, taking a more northward trek each day leading up to landfall.

While the forecasters did get the landfall time right, they failed to mention, or know, just how early the storm surge was going to come up. People on Bolivar were trapped beginning at 4am Friday morning. After that time, they had no way of getting out whatsoever.

So, yes, some people were going to stay no matter what, but I feel like I do have to defend those who had every intention of getting out, but were unable to. The southern beaches that weren't really hit that bad is where they were warning of immenent death and telling peolpe to write their social sec # in sharpie on their arm.

Rita "fatigue" definitely plays a huge part in this as well. Many people were forced with the decision of would they rather ride the storm out in their broken down car in the middle of no where or in their home.

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Kathleen
http://kcwoodhead.blogspot.com/
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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Some people get together a stash at the beginning of every summer and others put one together when a storm enters the gulf. Some people don't do anything beacuse they don't think the storm is coming (can't totally blame them...Houston hasn't had a storm in 25 years) and end up in trouble.

I had time to go to the grocery store/Target several times before the storm hit. I went Wednesday night and bought junk food when I still thought it was just going to mean a girls weekend of watching movies beacuse it was too rainy to do anything. I went again around 11am Thursday when work let us out and I was realizing my parents were going to be with me (needed food for more than just me at that point). Then I went again Friday morning after my long run, just because the store was still open and I could get in. I figured I should take advantage of the last minute opportunity. I was supposed to get beer and bananas for my dad, but "they" ended up costing about $65 because I had my mom's credit card in my possession by that point.

After the storm, I was able to get back to the grocery store late Sunday night, and they had ice. We tried Sunday during the day, but the line was around the building and they had no ice. I went again Wednesday during lunch to get some actual perishable items since I had power again, and also got tons of stuff for my boss who still did not have power. The parking lot was a total nitemare, and traffic was awful in the area because all of the lights are still out, but once inside, it wasn't that bad at all. No chicken though and the snack food isle was looking critically low!

_________________________________________
Kathleen
http://kcwoodhead.blogspot.com/
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [QRgirl] [ In reply to ]
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There's a big local government and media push at the beginning of every hurricane season for everyone to get together supplies. Personally, we didn't do it. We already had a few tarps on hand, and purchased everything else as the storm moved incrementally closer to Houston. We bought a few cases of water last Tuesday, batteries and gas on Wednesday, and food supplies on Thursday. I heard someone on the radio saying that they prepared by purchasing one extra nonperishable item or other supply every time they went to the store all year long. Then, if the storm never came, they donated all the food and water to a charity during the holidays.
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [txvet] [ In reply to ]
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kristen; good to hear you are safe and all the animals at the clinic are as well.
we got power back on Tuesday at home. no internet yet, so I am at my office to get on the computer.
we had no property damage, thank goodness. Saw enough of it in Dickinson returning a friend's dog we kept during the storm. Some places are really bad. Some will never be replaced. we are very fortunate.

We learned a lot from this storm and will know much better how to prepare in the event one heads this way again. I guess i always had hope that it would miss us again ( like Rita). Better to be prepared than to suffer through as we did. Fortunately Carrie ( my ironbabe partner) and her husband were only without power for 24 hours. so we were able to eat at their house for 4 days that we were without power. they saved us!

Jana



http://www.triontherunfitness.com
http://www.triontherun.com
http://www.ontheruntx.com
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [jana] [ In reply to ]
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Jana, I'm glad to hear you are ok! Almost everyone I know has either taken in someone who doesn't have power or is staying with someone else. We didn't have power but still housed my sister and her cats because she didn't want to be alone in her apartment!
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [jana] [ In reply to ]
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jana

good to see you're okay.


Im over @ Terry hershey park/kirkwood area. lots and lots of trees down. I had power restored monday afternoon. there are a lot of areas off of briar forest without power still this morning.

I biked to work some last week, its pretty devastated out there...
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [Bily Lovec] [ In reply to ]
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randy;

glad you are ok too. we rode today ( in training for IMA Nov). saw alot of Alvin, Manvel etc. still a lot of those areas without power and HUNDREDS of trees down. we finally have power at 2 of our stores. the tri store ( memorial) is still without but we have been open on a limited basis. seems there are some folks out there training and needing tri stuff....

Will be glad when everything is back to normal
jana



http://www.triontherunfitness.com
http://www.triontherun.com
http://www.ontheruntx.com
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [jana] [ In reply to ]
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jana

anymore snakes in the pool :-)
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Re: Hurricane recovery - a brief report from Houston [Bily Lovec] [ In reply to ]
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OMG. that is not funny! that is what my snake looked like. funny though, while swimming yesterday, I kept thinking about it because I have seen snakes on the road a lot since the hurricane. i thought about them being out more now due to all the water and a couple of times I stopped swimming and just looked around the pool to MAKE SURE THERE WAS NO SNAKE IN MY POOL. Thanks for the reminder and I will think about you next time i swim. :-)))))))

jana



http://www.triontherunfitness.com
http://www.triontherun.com
http://www.ontheruntx.com
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